


Legata Ferrea

by sonofzeal



Category: League of Legends, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5570278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofzeal/pseuds/sonofzeal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Iron Ambassador, as she might exist in Warhammer 40,000.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legata Ferrea

A woman sits at a desk as her pen scratches a litany on the paper. Cauliflowered ears and an eyebrow that was once half chewed off complete a wide face with thin lips, hardly anyone's impression of a classical beauty, but there is regal dignity in her bearing even here. Dignity, and throttled rage.

The pen scratches to a halt.

She remembers: her father's hands, broad and blackened and calloused, and her own childhood hands, still delicate and soft, as he guided her in setting a gem in one of his great works.

She remembers: her father's art, his jewelry and iconography, shining gold emblazened with gems, or even a simple piece of crude iron gaining quiet dignity as it transmuted into the Emperor's sigil. Life was hard and full of ugliness outside their walls, but the church and the nobles always had call for true beauty, and it was found in the work of her father's hands.

She remembers: no mother, but neither any need of one. A life simple and complete to itself.

She remembers: making deliveries for her father. Lady Vulprix, a noxious, spidery dame, standing in a black dress, arm outstretched to receive the latest pendant, while nude male slaves knelt around her, engaged in a ritual the young girl could not even begin to comprehend.

She remembers: Lady Vulprix's eyes searching her face for any hint of scorn, or outrage, or fear, any excuse to take action against her. But her father had trained her well, and the High Gothic exchange of trivialities went smoothly.

She remembers: delivering a new chalice to the Church of the Emperor Triumphant, being greeted by a jovial abbott, seeing the chalice take its new rightful place beside the altar, her father's works glorifying a greater cause than some horrid woman's vanity.

She remembers: her father's master-work, a golden Corsesque for the Cardinal of Calixis, every milimetre engraved in more detail than the human eye could observe with psalms, prayers, chants, and glorifications of the Emperor in every form written language could take.

She remembers: traveling with her father to deliver the Corsesque in person, her father coaching her on proper modes of address, proper places to stand, proper ways to bow.

She remembers: a sudden screech, the armored car grinding to a halt amid a sudden rush of people, signs and chanting and hatred in the air, something about taxes and oppression and aristocracy, a rebellion against the planetary governor.

She remembers: herself and her father being dragged out of the taxi, his calloused hands unable to slow the angry swarm. Accusations of being a "pawn of the aristocrats", a gun suddenly produce, a bullet in her father's head, blood covering the rioters behind him.

She remembers: herself, alone now, scrambling to safety through the croud, the Corsesque somehow in her possession and tucked under her jacket.

She remembers: the Arbitrators out in force, the rioters fighting back, gunfire echoing from a hundred directions at once.

She remembers: herself, crawling through gore as dusk fell, the Corsesque still clutched tight.

She remembers: herself, climbing over ruined buildings the next dawn, hunger gnawing in her belly and blisters forming on her feet.

She remembers: the manse Vulprix, torn open by rioters, looted and defaced, the Lady herself strung up in a crude noose. A feeling of satisfaction lifted the physical aches and pains. By unknowing hands has the Emperor's justice been wrought.

She remembers: a dead rat for a meal and gutter water to quench her thirst. No succulent morsel before or since ever tasted so glorious.

She remembers: a gang of rioters, thugs, coming to rob her or worse. Had they seen the Corsesque still tucked under her jacket? What sort of man would dare defile such a thing?

She remembers: throwing a punch at the lead thug's face, her undersized and soft hand travelling towards the ragged man's face, and her father's heavy fist connecting. Blood fountained up as he clutched his ruined face, the corruption within now reflected truly by disfigurement without. 

She remembers: the bombs falling, hot and red and blind, and the shattered bodies left in their wake.

She remembers: reaching the cathedral on the third day, one wing crumbled and smoking but the nave standing strong. She bore the Corsesque openly here, all doors swinging open to allow her through, as she proceeded up the center aisle amid disbelieving eyes and placed the Corsesque before the cardinal.

She remembers: herself, covered in blood and grime, sinking to merciful oblivion there in the center aisle, her mission and life complete in that moment.

The pen resumes its measured pace across the page. The Schola had taken her in, tended her wounds both physical and mental, gave her instruction, and in due course had enabled her entry to the Adepta Sororitas. The pain of that day diminished with time, but the terrible rage in her did not. In an order full of zealots and fanatics, for whom hatred was a weapon to be cherished, she felt doubts - not about the Emperor, for whom she would gladly fight and die for at a moment's notice - but about herself. She knows how the seeds of Chaos could take root in someone's heart, and hatred was the calling card of Khorne. She had distinguished herself on the battlefield with ease, earning her helmet in campaign against the Orkish Waaagh, but sought and usually received more bureaucratic work, interfacing between the Ecclesiarchy and the Administratum and so on. It kept her from feeding the gnawing anger inside her, and let her use the tools her father had given her, the last things she had left of him, the training in proper forms of address and how to conduct onesself in formal settings - things few Sororitas had patience for. And yet she never felt comfortable except when wearing the Sororitas Power Armor, nor never felt alive except when enacting the Emperor's justice. Today the ability to choose words carefully in an official document between the Ecclesiarchy and the Administratum may do more good than a full company of Astartes. But if the call to don her armor again comes down tomorrow, there wouldn't be a moment's hesitation.

Poppaea, daughter of Blomgrun, known as the "Legata Ferrea" by her peers, will not rest until Calixis comes to know unity. By whatever means are necessary.


End file.
